


Marlee and JR: An Intro Into their Life

by Tezca



Category: Country Music RPF, The Apprentice RPF
Genre: AU, F/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 13:33:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1943031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tezca/pseuds/Tezca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Baby when I look at you with them baby blues cutting right through me….yeah shoot me, I don’t know how else I can start this. This first chapter I mean, me and my wife decided to do this book about our marriage and talk about how we make everything work you know. Which I think we’re doing a bang up job, I mean we lasted ten years right?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marlee and JR: An Intro Into their Life

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah I started shipping John/Marlee hard when I started watching the season John was on so out came this AU fic lol.

Baby when I look at you with them baby blues cutting right through me….yeah shoot me, I don’t know how else I can start this. This first chapter I mean, me and my wife decided to do this book about our marriage and talk about how we make everything work you know. Which I think we’re doing a bang up job, I mean we lasted ten years right? Me and Marlee met on the first season of the Apprentice, I was 30 she was 38. Man she’s two years younger than Kenny, why is everyone I know older that I am haha...anyway I was managing the relatively lesser known band luvjOi which my best friend Kenny fronts, she was an actress that decided to give business a shot. You know just to see if she can do it. The show was a mixture of celebrities and regular folks.

And of course you the reader would probably already know my history in the music world, but in case you don’t I’ll tell you. I used to be in the band Lonestar as a bass guitar player in the 90's and I would also be second lead. It was a great experience, but I had creative differences with the other members later on and I was fired in '98. They wanted to sing about family and being parents while I wanted to sing about the good stuff, that is the partying, rocking, drinking until you passed out kind of songs.

Ironically enough, and I realized this a few years back when we had the twins Isabelle and Cash, I can see why those old farts wanted to sing about family and shit. I can see the appeal, or actually I did back then, but I guess I didn’t truly understand the feeling of being a parent, the joy of it and wanting to write about it until we had our first child Sara Danielle. Oh lord I was young and stupid. 

Kenny just looked at the screen over my shoulder and said we were all stupid when were young. Which he got a point, but he better stop freaking me out like that. I swear he’s like a ninja or a cat sneaking up on you from behind, going for the attack. I still don't know how the hell he manage to sneak so well, I should ask his wife Christiev about that sometime.

So anyways back to my train of thought, I was fired so I decided to try and make it out on my own, recording contract, album and all that. During this time I met my best friend Kenny who was putting together a band that in his own words, "...would revolutionalized music forever." We both also wrote songs together while trying to make it big, but somewhere along the line in 2002 I ended up managing a record label that I created. Oh wait, yeah I guess forgot to talk more about the album didn't I? Well there isn't much, just that I tried to release Underneath The Same Moon back in 2000, but it was shelved for whatever stupid reason there was until 2005.

So I ended up being a label executive and the minute I did the first band I signed onto the roster was luvjOi. I had faith in them so I promoted the fuck out of them, gave them more creative freedom than most labels do and what do you know, luvjOi became the biggest new rock band of the year in the USA in 2002 baby! They fucking deserve all the recognition they can get! Kenny and his boys didn't know what world wide stardom was though until two years later. It was also two years later that I met the women of my dreams. God she was so incredible, amazing and such a strong woman. It was like two planets colliding in fateful harmonic bliss. Two flowers blooming together in a Texan meadow on a late spring day.

Kenny just freaked me out again by laughing and saying that I totally acted liked a schoolgirl in love with a crush back then. He better stop looking over my shoulder like that, otherwise he'll find himself explaining to Christiev why they can't make babies for a while. All in good humor, but still that Virginian dumbass knows I hate it when people see me sounding all mushy like that. I can't help but think mushy sappy thoughts when I see Marlee. It's like how Kenny gushes over Christiev like a teenybopper sometimes, and vice versa. I've seen Christiev jump up and down like one backstage at his shows on more than one occasion.

You know that is another pro of knowing ASL, I can be mushy in public without anyone really seeing that I'm being mushy as hell! Well I guess other people who do know ASL would probably know....and Kenny and Christiev do know me well enough to know whenever I'm lovestruck. Alright so most of the time people won't pick it up, that's good enough for me as long as I don't act all sappy in public for very long. 5 minutes max is my limit.

Same goes for Marlee, she doesn't act like a rom com character. We don't mind the occasional ones though and even then we tend to sway towards romance movies set up like Gun Shy, that is to say movies that doesn't have that stupid cliched rom com vibe to them. I knew she was the one towards the end of the first episode when we were in the boardroom. I was standing behind one of the chairs and she was sitting across from me listening to Trump doing his thing you know when suddenly......suddenly we locked eyes with other and we both just knew.

It was instance respect for each other and not only that, but attraction as well. We looked into each other eyes and bam we both knew why we were there. Not for the drama, not for the bullshit arguments that people spew out on reality tv, but for the charities we were so passionate about. We just wanted to raise money to help our respective charities, we both instantly knew we were honest about this. And it wasn't just that too, but there was something more too. I can't describe it, I just can't...all we both knew is that we couldn't let each other slip through the cracks of love. It was like my gut was telling me that I found my soulmate, I knew she was the one for me. Out of everyone on the this planet and whatever alien planet there might be out there, Marlee is my other half. She completes me like Kenny and Chris complete each other. And she got that feeling too you know, she told me she knew I was her one and only cowboy the moment she laid eyes on me.

For that moment I swear it was like there wasn't anyone else in the room, it was just us staring at each other and wondering where we've been all our lives. And Virginian dumbass just startled the shit out of me again....he just told me that he thinks me and Marlee have always were meant to be together. He watched the season we were both on and I shit you not he was shipping us by the second episode. He was secretly hoping we would end up dating and getting married and get to having little Rich babies.

Which turned out to be the complete truth.

Also I still hold on to the theory that Kenny is secretly a cat, there is nothing else to explain how I'm not able to hear him sneaking up on me like that. I swear Big Kenny is like one of those stealthy black cat like a panther or a black house cat. Or well any house cat for that matter, they are all sneaky. Kenny would be a Persian/Siamese if he was a cat, I’ve given it some thought. Ok maybe not a whole but just based on looks alone he’ll be a mix of Persian and Siamese.

I won’t bore you with the details of how the show went and how we acted on there, its already on there in the episodes anyways so I’ll just skip to the part after I had won, she was named runner up and I was talking to Kenny. Me and Marlee during the course of the show met up with each other and we agreed to start dating after the production ended. After the whole thing was over so we wouldn’t screw up the whole thing and potentially cause things to be awkward. So I was talking to Kenny after the first or second date, we got around the hearing barrier by texting each other by the way, and I was telling him that I wanted to learn ASL so I can talk to her more easily. I said. “Kenny, you know that girl I told you about a few weeks ago? Well we started dating and I want to learn ASL to make everything easier for her, but I don’t know where to start regarding colleges and everything.” 

Me and Kenny never did went to college and I am positive I could’ve figure it out on my own, but I wanted some help, Plus I knew he could probably figure it out more clearly than I can, he went to the goddamn Virginia Governor School for the gifted for fuck sakes! That guy is Sherlock Holmes with blond hair and a Virginian accent, and I’m Watson. I even have the same first name as Watson, and Marlee’s first name begins with M, just like Mary Morstan….freaky coincidences. I don’t even know how I got off on a tangent there a bit, I apologize. I just watched the RDJ Sherlock movies again recently.

So I ended up taking nightly classes for a year and I even did some self teaching in my spare time. I knew I was doing this for a good reason, and I knew Marlee would be pleasantly surprised I did all that for her. I didn’t tell her cause I thought what better way to show her that then when the time comes where I proposed to her! Ha it was genius and Kenny thought so too. I enjoyed the class, we had to come up with a skit for one assignment, all in ASL of course, and my group decided to do a funny what to say/what not to say thing while talking to a Texan or Tennessean country music fan. Me and one other guy pretended to have a fight, made the whole class laugh too. There were fun times to be had in amidst the hard work.

It was totally worth it though, not only I can swear in two languages now(actually I know some Italian swear words courtesy of Christiev), but seeing Marlee’s reaction when she finally saw me doing it, her face lit up with the light of a thousand suns. It made me feel so damn happy to see her like that and I just love making her day and giving her more reasons to fall in love with me. Just like she gives me reasons to fall in love with her more. I have also gotten into fights using ASL since then sometimes, mostly people that though Marlee “betrayed” them for choosing to speak instead of sign at the Academy Awards back in the 80’s. I was still a teenager back then. There was one person though that I got into a fight with cause he signed that Texas is full of nothing but uneducated, backwoods hicks. 

I swear people are just asking for my fist lately, but its not like I get into fights every day, So during that year I perfected my ASL and kept on practicing with a few of my classmates for a few months after that. Well few meaning a couple cause I decided to pop the question on Valentine’s Day. Kenny had just gotten married on the same spot to Christiev a month prior. So me and Kenny were there in Deadwood for one of his shows, it was fucking awesome by the way. They have just came out with the single Dreamwalking...I still swear Kenny was high when he came up with the title...anyways it was another number one hit song for them and I was there being tour manager again. I was planning on hiring another so I could focus on my solo career, but the asshole that I did hired left without a trace and I ended up being their longtime manager. 

How did that happened anyways? I mean I was planning on living my dream of being a singer, but I ended up taking the position and never looking back I guess its cause Kenny and I trust each other, plus I do really like his band and his music.

Marlee was busy filming a movie with none other than Robert Downey Jr during that time so I decided I could send a video of me proposing on Deadwood Mountain and send it to Marlee. Kenny knew about me proposing cause I had to have his help filming me so there we were, up on that hill on a gorgeous, beautiful South Dakotan day. No clouds and I was in my usual jeans, shirt and my cowboy hat. I started off signing hello and telling her what I’ve been doing on a couple of nights for the past year or so and that I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to show her how much this Texan cowboy learned by going down on one knee and asking for her hand in marriage. Kenny sent the video and I swear to God the next 5 minutes were the most tense 5 minutes I ever felt in my life. Possible the most in the history of tense moments. I think Kenny was feeling the tension too. 

5 minutes came and suddenly we get a text from Marlee, she said yes! We were both so overjoyed, Kenny was really happy for me and it showed! He was cheering and pumping his arms up into the air, then he gave me one of his Big Kenny’s hugs where he usually lifts you off the ground in a moment of happiness. He was also calling everyone he knew telling him that my girlfriend just said yes, and I had fell to to the ground in lovestruck happiness with a big smile on my face. I couldn’t believe it! I was going to get married to one of the strongest woman I know on this planet, and I stay like that for a good 10 minutes while Kenny was running a circle around me and still cheering and acting like he had some marijuana in his system.

Actually I wouldn’t be surprised if he did smoked a bit that day, I mean it seems like every three days every week on that tour the bus would be filled with smoke up to the ceiling. And don’t get me started when I was being tour manager for them on their worldwide tour a few years later, I can count all the countries and cities we’ve been too where they smoked so much where the tour bus looked like thick fog on in an early winter morning. They got high in Sweden, they got high in England, Germany, Belgium, Australia you get my point.

I swear Big Kenny is related to Willie Nelson, either that or as I joked when we were in Mexico, the blond, hippie farmboy incarnation of the Aztec god of flowers Xochipilli. We were visiting the museum in Mexico City at that point and we even got to see the Aztec ruins which was pretty damn cool. Kenny is a sneaky cat who gets high on pot and you can’t tell me otherwise.  
We ended getting married that summer down at Kenny’s family farm up in Culpeper, and and thank the good Lord they didn’t serve the Alphin’s Famous Squirrel stew...I would’ve kicked Kenny’s ass then and there...teasing of course dear readers. Anyway it was a great place to hold the wedding, there were a lot of guests, Kenny was my best man and my dad, who is a priest, came up per my request to perform the wedding along with a rabbi. Oh god I was so nervous during the wedding...I mean how did Kenny go through two wedding without being a complete bag of nerves and sweat. 

I mean my heart was just pounding all throughout the ceremony, and it was short by the way, she had asked both of her parents to give her away and I was standing up in the alter with my usual suit and tie, plus the famous cowboy hat I always wear. Hey you can me out of Texas, but you can’t take the Texas out of me. Marlee liked the hat anyways, the girls always do haha. Speaking of which Marlee looked beautiful when she was walking down the aisle, I was lost in the moment there, she was….she looked liked an angel sent from above. I’m sure she was lost in the moment too as well, She had to be I mean we both were getting married. So she gets up and we signed our vows to each other, we locked eyes with each other, smiled and then…

And then we kissed, oh god it was it such a great kissed. I mean it was almost magical, I felt like nothing else in the world matter except her and we were alone in the world after. It felt like we were the only two humans left in the world after someone destroyed the rest of humanity. By god it was a kiss and day I will never forget in my life. So we had the wedding reception, danced to some music, Kenny sang a few songs….of which I believe he was drunk during the last two times he sang. I had a fun time signing his drunken version of Tragedy to Marlee. It was hard because I was giggling so much thus making her giggle from watching me giggle and well yeah.

We also couldn’t wait to have sex after everything was all said and done. So the moment we went to our bedroom, it was boom our clothes were off, we made love and nine months little Sara Danielle Rich was born! Oh my god I gotta tell you having your first kid is just overwhelming and the feeling of being a new parent, my god I felt happy to be a father. I mean by god I hope I do everything right in raising her and the twins as well. I would do anything for my wife, kids and my best friend Kenny…..well I can’t forget my parents and siblings too, they are family as well after all.

Oh god in all the years I’ve been married to Marlee, I never felt happier. She is an amazing woman, amazing mother, amazing kids too. Happy life, I mean I am managing the most popular, or one of the most popular rock bands, in the world.

So now comes the nearing of the end of the first chapter….yeah that sounded a bit melodramatic, I apologize. The rest of this here book is going to tell you, the readers, about all the problems any couple faces and how we deal with it. Even Mr Love Everybody and his wife get into an argument from time to time. Mostly it comes from him being a Virginian dumbass, but I disgress, Kenny and Christiev made it work just like me and Marlee did.

The only thing that set us bit different and brings its own challenges is my wife is deaf, which brings us to another thing this book is gonna tell you, we want to tell the world how we, a hearing and a deaf person, can successfully be married and raise children. Well there's the added being famous part, but this book is going to be about more the former. There are tons of books out there already about being famous bad being on the road and shit. Hell I can write a separate book all about being tour manager to a bunch of pot smoking hippies led by a Virginian squirrel eating farmboy.

We want to do away with all the misconceptions about being deaf or hard of hearing and just show you how we go through our life. We want to show you that yes this marriage is working and we can raise a family just like any other. Marlee is such a strong, amazing woman, I mean she already overcamed her disability by the time we met. She made a name for herself back in the 80's when I was still a teen in Texas trying to pick up chicks. Kenny was building stuff up in Culpeper at the time....possibly being a cat in his spare time too. I gotta tell you one other thing here before I end this chapter, one birthday, she told me she needed new hearing aids sometime before that they were wearing out.....so I decided I could buy some and have them engrave with the initials "MR" on it for Marlee Rich.

 

.....I will also give you more evidence throughout this book that points to my hypotheses that Big Kenny is in fact a cat....


End file.
